Collections of files and other electronic information may be presented on a graphical user interface of a computing device in various ways. For example, a “tree” view is sometimes used to show a hierarchical structure of folders. In such a view, a user generally may select a folder to view the individual files within a folder in a separate viewing pane from the tree view. In such a view, a user generally only views the contents of a single folder at a time.
A collection of files also may be presented in a “flattened” manner. In such a view, files from multiple folders may be presented as a collection of “locations”, or paths that denote the location of each file. For example, search results from a file or folder search may be presented in such a view. A flattened view allows a user to view, in a single viewing pane, files located in various folders located at different depths and down different paths in a hierarchical structure. Furthermore, this view may allow a user to organize a collection of locations by a common property, thereby making it easier to locate items in the collection.